Artist Statement

Alaska is a place of solace in a complicated world. Alaska is my story and the camera my companion.
The time and effort I put into my work allow me to keep reaching for perfection.
In the end I know it will be worth it.

As an aspiring photographer in Buffalo, New York, I always wondered what it would be like to meet a whale. I moved north in 1974 to attend the University of Alaska Fairbanks and have been photographing Alaska ever since. My first true encounter with a whale happened in Icy Strait in 1980. This humpback whale kept tail-slapping until I got within range. With each successive slap its tail picked up more and more water and by the time I pushed my shutter a beautiful waterfall cascaded down. I have not seen anything like it since.

My first whale encounter – 1980

Photographing Alaska makes for long hard days, and not every day is a great day. I often visualize a shot and sometimes wait for years for the parameters to be just right. Picture the magic of Glacier Bay, a place so raw and wild, and always on the edge of newness. Glacier Bay does not present itself easily. It is everywhere and nowhere. I submerge myself in its rhythm and let it come to me. I aim to capture its stark contradictions: complete silence complimented by the lapping sounds of waves on the beach overtaken by glacial thunder.